This week at Electronic Arts’ investor meeting, John Riccitiello, EA’s CEO John Riccitiello said fiscal 2007 was “the toughest year in the company’s history.†But why?
He explains: “[The last transition] was tough because we typically have two to three platforms and a five year period… One of the biggest challenges, of course, was that not a lot of people anticipated the success of Nintendo that they’ve shown with their wand controller and their Wii. That got ahead of us a little more than our expectations.â€
He’s quoted by Nextgen as admitting EA was on the “wrong horse†by concentrating mainly on the PS3 and Xbox 360 while throwing less resources towards the Wii during the console transition. Despite that they shipped six new Wii titles (compared to seven on PS3) in fiscal 2007 and EA now has the second-largest market share on Wii as of March 2007 with 19%, thanks mainly to Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 (08 will arrive on August 28th). Only Nintendo had a larger share.
I have to admit I think it was a good thing as, without all the big established franchises, it gave other smaller third-party developers a chance to get their fresh game ideas out there that might now get picked up by publishers for release on the Wii. That said, EA seems to be thinking the same way after the recent company-wide reorganization and a focus on creating new franchises like Steven Spielberg’s Wii puzzle game Blocks, but still nurturing current franchises.